ARTIST INFO
Czech by birth, Alphonse Maria Mucha (1860-1939) came to be the defining force of French Art Nouveau, the sensual and romantic artistic movement that flourished in the late 19th century. Mucha (pronounced “mookah”) received his artistic training in Prague and Munich before moving to Paris. In 1894, he was commissioned there to create a lithograph poster to be used as an advertisement for the play Gismonda, starring renowned actress Sarah Bernhardt. Both the actress and the public were instantly captivated by Mucha’s lush, sinuous, highly decorative style, and soon “le style Mucha” was sweeping across Europe and the rest of the world. Mucha went on to created several other advertisements for Bernhardt, and was also commissioned by the Champenois print shop to produce a wide variety of graphic projects such as posters, calendars, illustrations and postcards, most of them featuring the swirling, extravagant and idealized female forms that made Mucha the most popular artist of his time. His posters, both vintage and recreated, are still among the most highly sought after by collectors today. In 1988, S2 Art Group and the Mucha Foundation began a re-creation program, which produced lithographs that re-mastered a collection of the most beloved and important Alphonse Mucha images in his body of work.